


Worth Waiting For

by kaeda



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Beaches, Essek's parasol, Fluff, Future Fic, Getting Together, Holding Hands, Kissing, M/M, Sunsets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:21:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27135163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeda/pseuds/kaeda
Summary: “I need to buy paper,” Caleb said softly, for Essek’s ears alone, “but after that, I would like to show you something. Unless you had a plan of your own for this evening?”
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 25
Kudos: 243





	Worth Waiting For

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my dear Ariadne for the kiss prompt, "Kisses shared under an umbrella".
> 
> I know that animals with good night vision often can't distinguish colors in the dark, and I ignored that fact completely in writing this story. This is fantasy, gosh darn it!

The sun in Nicodranas was brighter than Essek remembered.

The Mighty Nein flooded into the streets from Yussa’s tower, excited at the prospect of shopping and seeing families and all sorts of things that Essek, in his months with them, still hadn’t quite learned how to embrace. He reveled in the pandemonium of being with them, but he also held himself apart, letting the chaos flow over him and remaining as observer. Since this was a role that Caleb often played as well, Essek found it comforting – and there was something satisfying about watching the Mighty Nein happen to _other people_. Strangers often ended up just as charmed and steamrolled as Essek himself once had been, nearly a year before.

The sunlight hit sharply, his eyes immediately burning from the glare. Essek still had the parasol Jester had gifted him, and he dutifully opened it as they made their way through the streets, himself and Caleb trailing behind.

“I need to buy paper,” Caleb said softly, for Essek’s ears alone, “but after that, I would like to show you something. Unless you had a plan of your own for this evening?”

Essek had made no plans other than to spend time with his friends, wherever that would take him. He’d learned within his first week traveling with them that making plans around the Mighty Nein would only lead to frustration. It was anathema to his entire being to simply allow things to happen without trying to manipulate events – and it had been almost therapeutic, spending a few months allowing the universe (or the Nein) to happen _to_ him, rather than trying to pull the strings from behind an elaborate veil.

“I have no plans,” he said, allowing the barest hint of a smile to peek out. Caleb returned the half-smile with his own, something Essek had been seeing more of recently, and the two of them set off.

It turned out, Caleb had a bit of a reputation in Nicodranas – he beelined for a particular shop, and the moment he entered, the shopkeeper took one look at him and sighed, _loudly_. “Paper?” he asked weakly.

“Only the finest quality,” Caleb said. “As much as you have.”

Essek felt a flaring of guilt – they went through a _lot_ of paper now that they had two wizards rather than one – but Caleb glanced over at him and raised an eyebrow with a quirk to his mouth. He was _amused_ by the whole situation. It didn’t even occur to Caleb to be covetous of his personal supplies, although Essek had heard him teasing Beau once about paper quality – his generosity with his paper seemed to be a gift that belonged to Essek alone. The two of them spent long hours in the library in Caleb’s tower, transcribing spells on the reams of paper Caleb owned, comparing notes, designing new spells, and being brilliant together.

After Caleb cleaned the shop out of its supplies and found an out of the way corner to place all of the new paper into his vault of amber, he and Essek headed back out into the sun-drenched streets of Nicodranas. A sharp sea breeze filled the air with the scent of salt as Essek put his parasol up once more.

“This may be an assumption,” Caleb began haltingly, “but I have the impression that while you have been to Nicodranas, it has not been for, ah, leisure.”

“That would be correct,” Essek said, glancing at the shops around them. Even with the parasol, the glare from the late afternoon sun was so bright that his eyes ached and all the colors of the city were washed out. He didn’t often regret his biology, but not being able to experience the city of Nicodranas as it was meant to be enjoyed was a bit disappointing.

“Then follow me,” Caleb said, taking off down the street without warning. Essek blinked and turned to follow before he lost Caleb’s bright hair in the washed-out crowds.

Essek quickly hurried along behind, ignoring the odd looks he received from passers-by. He had long since retired the mantle and Kryn finery for ordinary adventurer’s clothes, made of fine quality leather and with intricate embroidery but otherwise utilitarian. Even without his clear signals of status, however, Essek still attracted attention due to the fact that dark elves were unusual outside of Xhorhas (and that he was a handsome one at that, although he’d never say such a thing out loud to the Nein unless he wanted to endure endless teasing).

Still, the people in Nicodranas were mostly good at minding their own business, and Essek easily caught up to Caleb so they could make their way to Caleb’s eventual destination.

As they walked, he found himself admiring the energy of Nicodranas, the sounds and sights and smells of vendors hawking fish and beautiful cloths from all over the Menagerie Coast. The street food carts selling delicious-smelling finger food made Essek’s stomach rumble. Caleb stopped at one of the carts and bought something sweet for them to share, a fried dough concoction covered with powdered sugar, and held the plate between them as Essek regarded it suspiciously.

“It’s good,” Caleb reassured him, reaching down and pulling off a piece of the dough to eat. Essek looked away as he licked bits of powdered sugar from his lips.

“I don’t—” Essek said, although it was already a lie – months with the Mighty Nein had found him eating anything from Caduceus’s delicious vegetarian meals to spider legs to fried hunks of meat in Zadash. He gingerly reached out with the hand not holding his parasol, using two fingers to pry loose a piece of dough before regarding it with suspicion.

“Here,” said Caleb, reaching over to take the piece of dough from him. Essek blinked, confused.

Caleb held the dough up, waiting patiently. Essek’s heart skipped a traitorous beat, but he dutifully opened his mouth, making sure to roll his eyes slightly to show how little he was enjoying it as Caleb slowly reached over and fed him the dough. Caleb’s finger brushed against his lips like a hot brand. Their eyes met, tension thick between them.

And this, _this_ was the other thing that traveling with the Mighty Nein had brought him. The situation with Caleb had once seemed so complicated that nothing would ever come of it, but after traveling together, it had grown so simple that it was hard to understand what was keeping them from acting on it. They made eye contact too long, their hands brushed as they handed one another paper and ink for spells, and they spent entirely too much time together – it was to the point where it was assumed they would partner up whenever the Nein split. They had slotted perfectly into place even in battle, watching one another’s backs out of the line of combat while devastating their enemies with combined barrages of fire and graviturgy magic.

Essek took the time to taste the dough on his tongue – it was sweet and rich, truly decadent. “Ah, that is—delicious. Thank you,” he said, and Caleb nodded before pulling off a piece of dough for himself one more.

They continued along the road towards the endless expanse of sea, stretching broadly across the horizon. He and Caleb continued to share the fried dough (although Essek, to his own relief and regret, did not get any more fed to him) until the plate was empty and disposed of in one of the appropriate receptacles. It was only then that Essek realized Caleb was leading him out of the city, through one of the gates where the guards nodded at them, giving Essek a second glance with suspicious stares.

“Perhaps I should use Disguise Self when we return,” Essek murmured to Caleb.

“It will not be a problem,” Caleb reassured him, and Essek found that he liked this confident Caleb, who was comfortable in his magic and his position with his friends. He nodded, deciding to do as he’d done for the past few months and trust Caleb implicitly.

The walk to Caleb’s destination had taken longer than Essek had anticipated, and he was surprised to see the sun beginning to dip below the horizon, painting the entire landscape with gold as a spectacular sunset began to unfold over the ocean. Even with the washed-out colors of Essek’s day vision, it was magnificent.

“The first time I saw the ocean,” Caleb said haltingly as they stepped onto a sandy beach, “I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful. And then to swim in it – it was as though, for one hour, nothing of my past existed.” His eyes were wide and wistful, staring out at the water, and Essek’s breath caught as he realized what it meant that Caleb had chosen to share this with him.

They approached the shoreline, soft waves lapping against the sand. The beach was nearly devoid of others despite the beautiful sunset beginning to create pyrotechnics in the sky above.

Essek had been to the sea before, of course, both on the ships of the Cerberus Assembly in the midst of the peace talks and during his time as Dezran Thain in Nicodranas, but he’d never before taken the time to simply stare out at the expanse of the Lucidean Ocean. It was spectacular. It made Essek very aware of how small he was in the grand scheme of things – even with umavis and lifetimes and consecution, what were the lifespans of drow to the eons that this ocean had existed?

There was something, too, about being able to share such a moment with Caleb at his side. Caleb also stared out at the wide swath of blue in front of them, his eyes glowing with the reflection of the waves. “Do you know,” he added, “before I first saw the ocean, the closest thing I had experienced was our beacon.”

“You’ve mentioned you communed with your beacon,” Essek said, standing closer to make sure they couldn’t be overheard discussing such a topic, even though the beach was mostly empty. The shade of his parasol moved to shelter both of them, and Essek found it comforting even though the setting sun was no longer so bright.

“I did. We all did, when we carried it with us.” Caleb turned to gaze at Essek. Essek met his eyes, swallowing hard despite himself. “But enough about beacons,” Caleb continued. “I came here to show you something.”

“The sea?” Essek asked. “It’s very beautiful, of course.”

Caleb pointed at the sky. “Ah yes, you _think_ it’s beautiful now,” he said. “How many times have you seen the ocean, before?”

Essek thought about it. “Not often,” he responded carefully. “It is, of course, far from Rosohna, so it was only during my forays into…other activities…that I ended up in such places. Rarely the Menagerie Coast. I’ve been on a ship only once.”

Caleb hummed. “As I thought,” he said. “And all during the day?”

Essek’s heart fluttered, an inkling of what Caleb was getting at starting to form in his mind. “Yes, always in daylight,” he confirmed. Caleb had brought him to a beach at _sunset_. Had he been so purposefully thoughtful? Was this something more than an outing?

And he was now settling into the sand, a decent few feet from the crashing waves, facing the setting sun and glancing in Essek’s direction. Essek took one long minute to consider the irritation of sand in his clothes before he gave in to Caleb’s wide-eyed expression, like he did over and over again, and gingerly seated himself next to him.

“Perhaps, next time, we should bring a blanket,” he suggested.

Caleb turned to smile at him again; he was practically giving away smiles this evening. “I will remember that,” he said. Their hands laid merely an inch or so apart. Essek eyed them, his fingers twitching with the desire to reach over and brush his pinkie against Caleb’s.

He held the parasol awkwardly in his other hand, and Caleb glanced at it. “I have a thought,” he said, reaching over and gently taking it from Essek. He scanned the area around them thoughtfully before stabbing the handle into the sand. Essek blinked in surprise as the parasol continued to stand up straight on its own power – he’d never seen such a thing. “I have seen the people in Nicodranas do this with larger ‘beach umbrellas’ before.”

“Interesting.” Essek found that he had to duck slightly to fit under the brim of the parasol, but it still nicely shaded him from the fading sun. They sat together in silence, listening to the sound of the waves while observing the light show in the sky. The cascade of colors grew more varied as the sun dipped closer to the horizon, and Essek found that the washed-out vision of daytime was gradually transitioning to his dark vision, bringing clarity to their surroundings that he hadn’t experienced in full light. Watching Caleb’s hair turn from pale orange to its normal burnished copper was a particular delight.

Caleb glanced over and caught Essek watching him. He raised an eyebrow.

Essek felt a warm flush down the back of his neck.

“And here I brought you with me to watch the _sunset_ ,” Caleb said with a trace of amusement in his voice.

Essek’s entire life, his training, the world he’d lived in before the Mighty Nein screamed at him to deny that he’d been looking, to pretend it was something else, to deflect. But Essek wasn’t the Shadowhand anymore. He’d been traveling with the Mighty Nein for months, gradually learning what it truly meant to be _Essek_ and who he was when all the trappings of rank, family, and class were stripped away.

One of the things he’d discovered about himself was that he’d told half-truths and regularly lied because he was afraid, constantly. He was afraid of being seen. He was afraid of being known.

He was tired of being afraid. Maybe it was time to discover what a brave Essek truly looked like.

“I _am_ watching a sunset,” he said with a twist of a smile. He fixed his eyes on Caleb’s hair once more to make it clear what he was referring to, gratified to watch Caleb’s cheeks and the back of his neck turn slightly pink. Essek let his eyes linger for a few seconds longer, trying to memorize the moment, before finally turning back to watch the sky.

They both looked out over the water for several heartbeats. The sun slowly sank in the sky. Color continued to return to Essek’s vision. The ocean grew lovelier by the minute, but in Essek’s eyes it was still not nearly as eye-catching as the man seated next to him.

Caleb glanced at him again; it appeared that he was trying to size up how Essek was reacting to his outing. After several minutes of silence, he nonchalantly moved a bit closer, just enough to duck under the parasol himself.

Essek turned to raise an eyebrow at _him_ , this time.

“My skin is, ah, very sensitive to the sun,” Caleb said, still slightly pink. “I thought some shade could be helpful.”

Essek had read about humans and their tendency to burn in the sun, especially the palest ones. He looked Caleb over carefully to make sure there was no sign of damage, but other than the flushing (which he was pretty sure didn’t have to do with the sun), Caleb didn’t seem to be burnt. “It is good, to take appropriate precautions,” Essek replied mildly.

Caleb’s gaze was as bright as the sun. Essek found himself incredibly aware of the scant inches between them, only the handle of the parasol keeping them truly apart. They were so close that he could smell the soft scent of Caleb’s soap, warmth radiating from his body in the small space. He felt supernaturally aware of every movement, every breath, the air around them charged.

Did Caleb feel it too? A quick glance in his direction found Caleb studying his face, his gaze intense.

“Do you like it?” Caleb asked. “The sunset?”

Essek couldn’t help the twitch of a smile from appearing; Caleb and the Mighty Nein had long ago ruined his ability to hide emotions from his face. “Which one?”

“Let’s start with the one in the sky,” Caleb murmured. Their eyes met like an electric shock.

This was _it_ , Essek realized, tasting the anticipation in the air – _this_ was the moment he’d been waiting for, all these months exchanging glances and touches with Caleb and feeling too uprooted to pursue anything more. Somehow, in this moment, their collision had become inevitable.

“It grows more beautiful by the minute,” Essek replied truthfully as the last of the sun’s rays vanished over the horizon, leaving them in the fleeting light of early twilight. The sky remained lit with shades of red and purple, even more brilliant in Essek’s adjusting eyesight. “It was inspired, to come here at sunset with a drow.”

Caleb’s glance was all intensity. “I wouldn’t want to share something special with you if you were not able to experience it, also,” he said.

Their eyes met again before Essek’s inadvertently flicked down to Caleb’s mouth. Caleb followed his gaze and licked his lips. The space between their breaths seemed barely large enough for one person, much less two.

A soft finger brushed Essek’s hand, Caleb’s fingers reaching over and gently dusting a featherlight touch against his. Essek’s pulse quickened - he was sure that Caleb could hear his heartbeat over the sound of the waves. He quickly turned his hand to catch Caleb’s fingers with his own, lacing them together and running his thumb across Caleb’s palm. Hearing the catch in Caleb’s breath at his touch was gratifying; Essek was not the only one so affected by something so small as proximity and human connection.

“Essek,” said Caleb, “I—”

“Caleb,” Essek said at the same time, “it’s—”

They broke off in unison, Caleb huffing a laugh and Essek glancing down at the sand, feeling absolutely flustered. Despite the awkwardness, Caleb did not release Essek’s hand, keeping a grip on him as though his palm was a lifeline. Neither of them attempted to pick up the thread of conversation; instead, they returned to sitting in silence, watching the sky and, at least on Essek’s end, reveling in the feeling of Caleb’s hand in his own.

It was remarkable, what a difference that small, soft touch made to a moment.

Twilight settled comfortably around them, and the hues of the beach and the ocean grew luminously clear as Essek’s vastly superior dark vision continued to kick in. It warmed his heart that Caleb would be so thoughtful, to bring him to this place, at a time when both of them could appreciate the view the most.

He glanced up at Caleb, sure that all the ridiculous feelings he’d harbored in his heart for months were visible on his face, and found Caleb studying him across their joined hands. He wore an expression that Essek had never seen before, something that lit a fire in his gut and made his veins electric with _wanting_. As the light faded around them, it suddenly seemed so simple to cross that final gap of space.

Essek leaned his weight onto one crossed leg and levered himself upward, using his free hand to cup Caleb’s cheek as he pulled him into a kiss.

It was slow, languorous like molasses, a soft slide of lips against lips as Caleb turned to chase Essek’s mouth, his hand going to Essek’s waist and clutching in the fabric there. After a bit of soft, chaste kissing, Caleb’s mouth opened under Essek’s and _oh_ , this was what he’d been missing all these months. Essek rose to his knees to reach him more comfortably, one hand in that silky hair that he’d been dying to touch, and a moment later Caleb had both hands against his waist, pulling him towards him with clear intent to settle Essek in his lap—

Essek’s elbow bumped the handle of their beach umbrella in his enthusiasm, and they pulled apart in shock as the entire parasol toppled over on them, covering them with lacey fabric and a shower of sand. Essek sputtered in surprise, trying to free himself from the unbalanced parasol that had captured them. Next to him, Caleb made a small sound that Essek realized was laughter, clear and beautiful.

They managed to dislodge the parasol, and it fell backwards onto the sand, twirling like a top for a heartbeat before stalling to one side. Caleb’s eyes were alight, tufts of his hair sticking up from either the kissing or the parasol incident. Essek wasn’t quite sure which, and the memory of that hair between his fingers made him twitch for another opportunity to sink them into it.

“You planned this,” Essek said, licking his lips. “Bringing me to the beach at sunset. For this?”

Caleb didn’t even look bashful. “I did,” he confirmed, his eyes still bright with intensity as he studied Essek’s face. “You don’t mind?”

“I’m…not opposed to it.” Essek was embarrassed that his hoarse reply gave away exactly how unopposed to the prospect he was. Caleb seemed to understand, and he leaned over to kiss him again, just a brief slide of their mouths together before taking Essek’s hand in his own once more.

“You have traveled with us for long months,” Caleb said. “You can’t…have missed how I feel about you.”

Essek swallowed hard. He hadn’t.

“And you can’t have missed how _I_ feel about _you_ ,” he countered. “We are both trained in reading the feelings of others.”

Caleb gave a small, tight smile. “We are,” he said. “And you know I am…an awful person. I have done terrible things. But somehow, with you, I don’t feel like I can loathe myself as much.” He paused, glancing out at the sea. “Because while you have also done terrible things, I cannot find a bone in my body that loathes any part of you. And if I can care for you, so completely, even in the face of everything…” He trailed off.

“Then maybe you, yourself, are not as loathsome as you think,” Essek completed for him, reaching over to run a hand through that long hair, tracing one elegant cheekbone to cup his face in his palm. “There is not a bone in my body that loathes you either. In fact, it is quite the opposite.”

The words left his lips so easily, after being held in for so long.

Then Caleb was kissing him again, fiercely, pulling Essek against him and leaving no space between them. Essek tangled a hand in Caleb’s hair once more, pulling it loose from the tie that kept it neat and running his fingers through the red strands as he was kissed within an inch of his life. They pulled apart again, panting.

Essek catalogued Caleb’s darkened cheeks and half-lidded eyes and said, “perhaps we should be heading back.”

Caleb licked his lips. “Wait a few more minutes, until it gets truly dark,” he said, gesturing at the sky. “I want you to tell me what you see when it gets truly dark.”

Essek felt a small smile on his face. “So this wasn’t a pretense, to bring me here just to get me to kiss you,” he said.

Caleb gave his most innocent look. “I did not dare to hope that kissing would be the outcome of this evening,” he said, entirely too earnest for it to have been anything other than the full truth.

It was such a sweet answer that Essek kissed him one more, taking his time with it, pulling Caleb against him and leisurely exploring him. It was delightful to discover that Caleb closed his eyes when he was kissed, that he shivered when Essek wrapped his hand tightly in his hair. Caleb cupped Essek’s face with his own hands, softly stroking along one of his ears. Essek felt himself gasp into his mouth, surprised at the shock of feeling that curled electric along his spine.

Caleb drew apart from him again, leaving Essek flushed and disheveled, his clothes slightly wrinkled and covered with sand. His hair was almost definitely as much of a mess as Caleb’s own, and anyone who looked at them would have no trouble discerning what they’d been up to – they would have to avoid the scrutiny of Jester upon their return unless they wanted to be grilled within an inch of their life. Essek laughed at the thought, and he found Caleb smiling at him, reaching over to secure a lock of hair behind one pointed ear.

“Look,” he murmured, his voice soft. He gestured around them, where true darkness had finally set in.

Essek followed his gaze, and his breath caught in his throat.

The ocean at night was stunning.

While he’d been kissing Caleb, the stars had gradually begun to appear in the sky as twilight faded into night, spilling across the horizon in a waterfall. The Lucidean would have been dark to Caleb’s human eyes, but to Essek it was alight with beauty, shades of midnight blue as far as the eye could see, racing up to meet the river of stars. It was breathtaking.

In Rosohna, Essek had never even dreamed that he would ever get to see such marvels with his own two eyes. He reminded himself to breathe, and at his side, Caleb huffed a laugh.

“Worth waiting for?” he asked. Essek turned and kissed him in reply.

There had been many things worth waiting for in Essek’s long life, and he had a feeling that the Lucidean Ocean at night was only the beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to yell about Critical Role with me, look me up at [the-kaedageist](https://the-kaedageist.tumblr.com/) on tumblr! Thank you so much for reading!


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